


nor are we forgiven

by sirfeit



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief, Minor Bellamy Blake/John Murphy, john murphy/finn, john murphy/zev, spacekru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:41:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26639752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirfeit/pseuds/sirfeit
Summary: 7x16 spec fic after "we have not touched the stars" by Richard Sikenabout grief and the relationship of bodies
Relationships: Emori/John Murphy (The 100)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	nor are we forgiven

**Author's Note:**

> content warning for assumed Emori's death
> 
> recommended listening: the transistor soundtrack by Darren Korb but especially "Old Friends"

It’s late when they arrive back to Sanctum, when Murphy comes back to take the hero’s place, to put the crown back on his head, to accept his position. For Emori, who is mostly dead but not always and his shoulders — his shoulders are shaking. He is trembling, he is aware that he is coming apart at the seams but he knows that he is _going to_ and he knows that he will not survive that, will not survive what comes after that. The thing now is to keep breathing, to keep putting his feet in front of him, to keep other people out of the operating theater, what theater, are we going to watch Romeo and Juliet now? Are we going to act it out? He will play Mercutio, and — the role of Romeo has always been taken as far as he’s concerned, hasn’t it. He is hysterical. He is crying. This keeps happening, where his eyes fill with tears and he can’t — he can’t — it doesn’t get any farther than that. He never has the time. The space.

He took her to the stars and he named each one after her. (He is not good at astronomy, and he is not a very creative person. She is — was?? — the brightest thing in his life.)

He would be in the room himself, if they would let him, if it was safe for her. He would reach into her chest and manually pump her heart for her. She wouldn’t want that, she wouldn’t want him to go through that trauma all over again for some half-chance that she might live through this, might not — might —

Raven’s hand. is warm on the back of his neck. On his shoulders. Across his body. She is gentle, gentle, gentle. Not because of the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it. The violence done to him (the whip the rope the seatbelt the cuffs the collar), the violence he has done (the gun the hammer the rag the sickness the apathy). And this is what kills her? It’s her and not him, and it’s not him, and — this is supposed to be the kind of love that makes you better. The kind of love that redeems you. This specific kind of love, it’s supposed to make you kinder, gentler. All it does for him is transcend hunger. It curls up in his chest and hurts him.

—

Clarke is on another planet. This has never been a home, not for a century past, not for the century before that. She always thought it was a hundred people to take care of, but maybe it was a hundred generations instead. The lawn is drowned; the sky is on fire. They open the book to take the final test and the robot comes out to play with them, the woman in red, here to make friends. Artificial intelligence, artificial kindness. Clarke is familiar with at least one of them, isn’t she, now? It was never about being saved. It was never about being — redeemed. Nobody here has earned their redemption. The sun rises onto them, the gold light falling backward through the glass of every room. All she feels is empty: this hollow home, this heartless habitat. There is no more hope for her here (left that one back on Earth, huh?). Makes you sad. All your friends are gone.

Goodbye. Goodbye.

No more tears.

—

Clarke comes back to Sanctum because why would he ever be rid of her. Earth couldn’t kill her; all it did was make her much, much, worse. No Juliet in her, just Lady Macbeth; should’ve known because she never even had a first name. But she doesn’t have to deal with Bellamy’s body, does she? When Emori does not come back, when Emori leaves him in the theater alone, he goes and does it himself. And what do we do with the body? Do we burn it? Do we set it in the dirt?

He burns it like Finn’s body, in the village, building a pyre. You build the fire a grave and it dies. You build the body a home and it dies. It always dies. Someone always puts out the fucking fire before he’s ready to let it go. Raven comes to watch him do it. Clarke comes to watch him do it.

If he had built a grave, he is sure he would have climbed into it himself. Stick a fork in him. He’s done. "Ai, speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied," he mutters to the fire, but it doesn't answer him back.

He wants to feel something. He wants the violence again, wants to feel it under his hands. Somebody give him a goddamn gun. He wants someone to care enough to try and stop him.

He wishes he had skipped to the back of the book. The fields burned, the land destroyed, the loves left broken in the brown dirt. But they were alive, weren’t they? They were both alive. That’s how the poem goes.

They dig the drive out of Emori’s head before they burn her. Murphy leaves her in the theater. It is her body, her body, her body, softened by gasoline and ash.

Later, he lets them put the crown on his skull. It is the same weight as the collar, just settled differently on his bones. When he steps into silk pajamas and crawls into bed, he thinks of the priest that tried to love him, tried to frame him for the crime of being himself in his own body. It has never felt more like a crime.

This is his body, his blood.

Raven comes to join him without being asked. A little later, Echo comes too. (Not like that, asshole. He would never show that kind of disrespect, not with this wound so fresh.)

This is the kind of love that is supposed to make him better. But this body is always a wound. The body did this to us; made us afraid of love. This is what transcends hunger? This is whatever kept us fit. And this is how we knew we belonged to it.

Raven turns Clarke away when she comes to the door.

Listen to him. Listen. He has been made ghost and been reborn as flesh. And the animal of his body? It does not come for anyone but him. And what is that but loyalty? But undivided love.

**Author's Note:**

> the 100 is bad TV show actually,
> 
> i hope you are all moving on to bigger and better things and staying safe and having fun. <3
> 
> leave me a comment! i will be pleased as punch


End file.
